The American legal and judicial system 497victim of discrimination in the workplace? Would you sue in state or federal court?
You probably could do either, but the decision would be based on which set of laws
would provide you with more protection from discrimination. This varies by state,
so the proper jurisdiction for a given case is often a judgment call based on specific
legal questions. (This practice of seeking the best court for your case is called
venue shopping.)Structure of the Court System and Federalism
The structure of the court system is like the rest of the political system: it is divided
within and across levels of government. Across the levels of government, the court
system operates on two parallel tracks within (1) the state and local courts and (2) the
federal courts. Within each level of government, both tracks include courts of original
jurisdiction, appeals courts, and courts of special jurisdiction. As shown in the How It
Works graphic, the state courts are entirely separate from the federal courts, with the
exception of the small proportion of cases that are appealed from a state supreme court
to the U.S. Supreme Court. There is much variation between the states in terms of how
they structure their court systems. However, they all follow the same general pattern
of trial courts with limited and general original jurisdiction and appeals courts (either
one or two levels, depending on the state).District Courts Workhorses of the federal system, the district courts handle more
than a quarter of a million filings a year. There are 89 districts in the 50 states, with at
least one district court for each state. There are also district courts in Puerto Rico, the
Virgin Islands, the District of Columbia, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands to
bring the total to 94 districts with 677 judges.^18 There are two limited-jurisdiction dis-
trict courts: the Court of International Trade, which addresses cases involving interna-
tional trade and customs issues, and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which handles
most claims for money damages against the United States, disputes over federal con-
tracts, unlawful “takings” of private property by the federal government, and other
claims against the United States.Appeals Courts The appeals courts (officially called circuit courts until 1948)^19
are the intermediate courts of appeals, but in practice they are the final court for most
federal cases that are appealed from the district courts. The losing side in a federal case
can appeal to the Supreme Court, but given that the highest court in the land hears so
few cases, the appeals courts usually get the final word. Appeals courts did not always
have this much power; in fact, through much of the nineteenth century they had very
limited appellate jurisdiction and did not hear many significant cases.
The number of appeals courts in the nation slowly expanded as the workload of
these courts grew. Currently, there are 12 regional courts and the Court of Appeals for
the Federal Circuit, which handles specialized cases from all over the country. The
smallest of the regional appeals courts is the First Circuit, which has 6 judges, and
the largest is the Ninth Circuit, which has 29 judges.^20 In 2017, there were 179 appeals
court judges and about 85 “senior judges” (these numbers include the appeals court
for the federal circuit).^21 Senior judges are semiretired judges who hear certain cases
to help out with the overall federal court system workload; they typically handle about
15 percent of the workload for the federal court system.The Supreme Court The Supreme Court sits at the top of the federal court system.
The Supreme Court is the “court of last resort” for cases coming from both the stateappeals courts
The intermediate level of federal
courts that hear appeals from district
courts. More generally, an appeals
court is any court with appellate
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